LITMIR.BIZ

      Fancy Girl

      Jasen

      Sousa

      Edited by Kimberly J. Kreines and KL Pereira

      Text copyright © 2012 by Jasen Sousa

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address J-Rock Publishing, 45 Francesca Avenue, Somerville, MA 02144.

      Published in eBook format by J-Rock Publishing

      Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com

      First Edition

      ISBN-13: 978-0-9714-9268-4

      Visit: www.jasensousa.net-www.jrockpublishing.com-facebook.com/jasen.sousa

      FOR SINGLE MOTHERS

      PROLOGUE

      THE PLAYGROUND

      Madelyn bursts

      like water out of a gutter;

      down the slide, toes up

      and I sit watching her

      on a wooden bench.

      That’s what good mothers do.

      Some girl, her heels sinking

      in soggy woodchucks, still strutting

      and I see it’s Alissa,

      the one girl every Somerville guy

      has on speed dial.

      “You be Deanna, right?” she asks.

      “I be, different things, to different people,” I say.

      She sits down next to me, and my wandering eyes.

      Short,

      short skirt, and stockings, careful

      not to let splinters stab her thighs.

      Maddy smiles and waves

      from the top of the slide, our project

      building standing behind her.

      “She’s beautiful,” Alissa says.

      Maddy crash lands and says

      to the older boy who plays

      without anyone watching him,

      “Bet you can’t go down faster than me!”

      “She has your eyes.”

      I pause before I answer, think

      about what my eyes have seen.

      “She has my everything,” I say.

      “She was lucky being born

      with all of my beautiful genes,

      not her father’s.”

      “I heard things have been rough

      for you lately with your mom dying

      and all. If you’re looking for a way

      to make some extra cash, I might be able to help

      you out,” Alissa says.

      “I know it’s not easy to make it on these streets.”

      The buildings of the Mystic Projects draw a shadow

      over Alissa’s face, she looks away from me, sparks a Newport,

      and blows smoke towards a setting Somerville sun.

      SOMERVILLE, MY HOOD

      In my neighborhood nobody really knows who they are.

      Like Phil Bailey:

      a 40-something-year-old dude

      with Coke bottle glasses and a backwards

      Bruins cap who plays ball with the kids at the playground,

      and then recruits them to sell drugs for him.

      Like skinny-ass Sherri:

      a twenty-something-year-old lady

      who looks like she is fifty, but still

      dresses like she’s a teenager. A straight-up

      case of what living in Somerville does

      to a person’s skin, and to their soul.

      Like the Sledgehammer and Zoo-Nikki:

      two old school Irish cats who pretend they’re mobsters

      roughing people up in their scaly caps,

      jean shorts, and white sneaks with no socks

      that they wear no matter what season it is.

      Like Megan:

      a chick in her twenties

      who doesn’t have a home of her own. Her

      parents kicked her out for stealing the TV

      and sofa and selling them for a hit. You

      can still find her roaming around her crib,

      trying to find new ways to break in.

      Like Cadillac Chris:

      A dude in his twenties covered

      with the worst tats you have even seen! You know,

      the ones that are done by a friend of a friend for cheap money

      at a house party. They ain’t even black, they’re like green,

      Cadillac Chris with his green Cadillac

      logo tattooed over his heart. Everyone needs

      to love something, right?

      Like me:

      Deanna. A single mother who will do anything

      to get out of the projects, even

      if it means taking off my top, pulling down my pants, and filling

      up my pockets with dirty money.

      In Somerville, sometimes you just become things

      to be something.

      LAST NIGHT’S DREAM

      My apartment infested:

      cockroaches.

      Stained toilet seat cover hung

      half-way off,

      couldn’t see water in the bowl, toilet paper,

      cigarettes, funky

      combination of piss and shit.

      Someone stabbed

      outside my door, hallway

      of the Mystic Projects.

      Cops

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